inverter hook-up info

[JohnEd]

OK, so now I have my brand new, to me, Zantrex Freeedom 3KW inverter.  Remember that clever question about if a dog that is chasing a car ever catches the car then what exactly would he do with it?  I'm feel'n a little PUPish.

I read into the manual I downloaded.  It seems to be assembled a little odd but has all the data, so far, in there somewhere.  The last thing I read before my vision blurred was curious.  The inverter has a feature whereby the current made available to the charger to produce it's 140 amp(max) bat charge current will be reduced if the inverter ac load starts to increase the total load beyond the 3KW max.  Neat feature as you don't have to worry about popping the 30 amp breaker on the pole while the charger is in full stride on some depleted bats if you turn on the roof ac unit.  I hate resetting that breaker.  Now in the hook-up discussion it identifies two sets of lines for AC out.  One set works with the loadsharing feature and protects the pole breaker.  The other set, it says, bypasses that protect feature.  Why would you want to let yourself open to popping the breaker if you had a feature to prevent that?  Today wasn't a good day so maybe I can get through more of this tomorrow.  Till then, anybody got milk they want to share?

Thank you,

John

[JackConrad]

John,
    Not sure if your inverter is like this one.  Are there 1 or 2 AC circuit breakers on the inverter?  Our older Heart Interface has 1 breaker (30 amp). Last winter, I installed a newer Heart Interface (to replace one that got "smoked" when the coach was plugged into a 30 amp 240 volt receptacle) for a friend. This unit had 2 120 volt circuit breakers (15 amp each). This unit had 1 AC input and 2 AC output wires.  When we called Heart Interface, we were told each set of output wires were connected to 1 of the 15 amp breakers.  This meant that although he has 30 amps available, it was 15 amp per circuit. He was not happy as he had to practice load sharing of the 15 amp per circuit.
    Jack

[JohnEd]

Jack,

One 30 amp breaker....2 AC IN wire sets...2 AC OUT wire sets.

I would be ticked if mine died that sort of death, too.

Thanks for the response,

John

[pvcces]

John, the two circuits were common on the 3,000 VA models because the charger draws so much of the capacity of a 30 amp circuit. On one of ours, I recall the manual saying that the charger could draw up to 21 amps of AC.

I believe that they figured on the load sharing circuit being on a 30 amp shore line and that these inverters with the big chargers mostly being used on 50 amp shore lines.

You may remember that many RVs with two air conditioners would only run one at a time if they only had a 30 amp shore line, so there were various schemes for dealing with each possibility. I expect that the second AC circuit was used for the second air conditioner, in many cases.

Heart did make it's inverters with a number of configurations, and I think they expected customers to buy the one that they needed.

For what it's worth.

Tom Caffrey

[JohnEd]

Tom,

You are correct about the different configurations.  Only that there are four different configs you can choose from to wire any inverter like mine or the Freedom Marine 2.5KW. 

I am so very pleased with this thing.  I can hook it up to 30 amp 120V or 50 amp 120 through the AC2 or 220 2 phase.  Power sharing only happens on AC1.  The instructions confuse me about power sharing and AC1 but I will sort it out.  They also specify a 208V pass thru on AC2(only).  Amazing!  What flexability.  It is also easier to understand why there are sooooo many catastrophic failures.  Got a whole page of installation checks to go thru before final connections and power up are run.

Thank you for all your help....I needed it.

John

[white-eagle]

not to hijack this thread, but since a lot of folks just doing or thinking of doing their inverters, i thought i would mention that i was just at a Surplus Salvage shop in Elkhart to buy new gas lifts ($12 versus $32 for new 90lb-27") for my doors.  they were also carrying $450 new warranted  2000w inverter/chargers like i bought for $800 in florida, refurbished.

i think they had a few bigger and a few smaller units for sale with all the accessories.  i thought i got a great deal in Florida, turns out it was only a deal compared to CW/LazyDaze.